Union membership declines

Union membership fell by approximately 400,000 last year in the United States, the lowest level since 1935, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act. More than half of that loss, about 234,000, were teachers, firefighters and other government workers. In 2012, just over one in 10 U.S. workers belonged to a union. More than 3 in 10 public-sector employees belonged to a union, but several Midwestern states where budget-cutting efforts targeted government unions showed large losses in union membership.